Commonly assigned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 546,860 of Michael W. Knight and Paul G. Feil filed on Oct. 31, 1983, and entitled Miniature Power Switching Relay and Method of Manufacture describes a single-pole, power-switching relay that was designed to be mounted and terminated on a printed circuit board. As is typical of such relays, all terminals and connections are electrically coupled to conducting paths on the board itself; and all external load power connections are adapted to be made to terminals installed on the board and electrically coupled to the external ends of the conducting paths.
There are a number of disadvantages to this type of mounting procedure. Initially, relays of the type described in the above-identified application are relatively high-current devices (up to 30 amps at 240 volts AC) and thus require relatively thick, wide conducting paths on the printed circuit board capable of accommodating these loads. These necessitate the use of significant amounts of copper to form the paths and also occupy valuable board space which could often be better utilized for other purposes. Frequently also, high loads require the use of costly two-sided boards having conductive paths on both sides of the board.
In addition, this mounting procedure requires at least three separate electrical connections for each line: a first connection coupling the relay terminal to the printed circuit board (for example, a solder connection); a second connector attaching a termination element to the external end of the conducting path on the board (for example, a rivet and/or solder); and a third connector coupling the termination element to the external load (for example, a quick-connect coupler). Since the number of connections increases the chances of interface problems, especially at higher current levels, it would be advantageous to be able to reduce the number of connections.